


i'll be here until you're okay

by svladcjelli



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Sickfic, leslies got a cold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24767281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svladcjelli/pseuds/svladcjelli
Summary: Ellis is fevered and Joe has to play caretaker. (He's lucky Joe doesn't mind.)
Relationships: Joseph Blake/Lieutenant Leslie
Comments: 12
Kudos: 38





	i'll be here until you're okay

**Author's Note:**

> sam mendes said leslie was canonly ill and then i said: modern au time. this is the product of that. hope u enjoy! :')  
> titles from talk to me by cavetown!

"Come on, Ellis. You have to get up, it's ten past already." 

From their bed, Ellis grumbled something incoherent. Joe was already in his work clothes, expecting Ellis to follow suit as he always did. Since living together, they had found themselves falling into small routines throughout the day. (Whichever way you looked at it, they were domestic no matter how much they claimed not to be.) 

Ellis stayed up well into the night while Joe was the early-riser. Joe always shook him awake about an hour before they had to before their shifts started, giving him plenty of time to get dressed and ready for the day. 

It was half an hour until Ellis' first shift. He sighed.

"Love, you went to bed early last night. Is something wrong?" That much was true. Ellis had said he had a headache and went to bed earlier than Joe had seen and while headaches weren't uncommon for him, Joe noted the grey-ish tone his skin took on. 

Ellis rolled over to face him, eyes cracked open just so Joe could see his glazed-over look.

“Are you sick?” 

There was a garbled sound like Ellis was working double to get his mouth to cooperate. 

“No.” 

_Yes._ Joe pressed his lips to Ellis’ forehead- a trick his mum had used on him as a child- feeling the radiating, sickly warmth emitting from him. 

“You’re sick.” 

The absence of remark was the most concerning. There was no _ah, fuck off_ or _I’m fine, stop worrying_ \- just a steady silence that rang in the air. 

“I’m gonna call us in,” Joe sighed, dialing his phone, “Scho’ll understand that you’re about to fuckin’ die and-”

“Not dying, don’t be daft.” _His voice is croaky, full of flu, a little delirious._

Joe would have laughed if Ellis didn’t look so miserable.

_‘Oh no, that’s no good. Send him our regards, will you?’_ Schofield spoke through the other end of the line _, ‘I hope he feels better. Take care, alright?’_

“I’ll try, you know how he is. Tell Tom I said hi.” Joe hung up just as Ellis tried prop himself up in their bed.

“You have a fever.” He immediately rushed over, trying to coddle Ellis as protective instincts took over his mind.

He managed to sit up fully, body slumped over and face glistening with sweat. He trembled.

"I know!" He snapped, a bit uncharacteristically. Passive comments were normal but not _snapping._ Joe dropped the subject immediately. 

There was a silence besides Ellis' labored breaths. 

"'m sorry. Didn't mean to snap, love, I'm-" Ellis was cut off by choked wet coughs, bringing a hand to cover his mouth. Too slow, he thought as sticky phlegm stuck to his sleep-shirt. Joe rubbed his back the best he could, Ellis' body still shaking with tremors.

"Oh, my love." Joe murmured breathlessly- a habit. When his coughs came to a halt, Ellis groaned subconsciously- that glazed-over look more prominent than ever. They had just moved into their new flat so they didn't own a lot of 'necessities' like a thermometer, it was something they hadn't considered. Joe cursed himself for not thinking ahead, especially knowing Ellis' shit immune system but not considering for a moment that he was bound to fall ill.

It scared him to consider the unknown height of Ellis' fever. 

Joe helped him change into a sweater- one of his that seemed to completely drown Ellis in fabric. He had a habit of stealing clothes like a raccoon but Joe always found his heart swell at the sight of Ellis in any of his shirts, no matter how many times he had in the past. 

He helped Ellis lie back down and much to his concern, he was compliant through it all. Joe tucked the duvet around Ellis' shivering body and he was asleep within minutes.

Joe looked down at Ellis' sleeping form and something pulled at his heart. His face was neutral- peaceful, even- and Joe wondered if he always looked that small. 

The following hours were a blur. Joe caught up on paperwork and woke Ellis up periodically for bathroom breaks and glasses of water. Among work, Joe ran a few Google searches that included _'How to take care of someone sick?'_ and _'fever reducer?'_ and found hydration is key. Ellis didn't seem to agree, spluttering out the water at every chance he got.

"Come on, Ellis, you're gonna get worse if you don't keep hydrated." 

"'Hydrated' my ass, it hurts my throat! Gimme a brandy punch n' I'll be good as new." 

He didn't trust Ellis to be left alone in the house while he went to the corner shop for medicine, he'd likely try to get up and make a plate of food and light a cigarette so instead, he lazed around their flat in sweats while doting on Ellis. He wouldn't call it doting, though, more like _strategic checking-on._ Yeah, that was it.

Ellis had a filthy habit of never taking care of himself. Maybe it was a form of self-destruction or maybe it was a result of his too-carefree attitude but either way, it worried Joe to no end. 

Maybe, just maybe, it had to do with the fact he hadn't seen his mother in sixteen years. Ellis had blurted out details his mother's rejection over a couple drinks that left them talking well into the night. While Joe's memory was hazy, he could still recall the information with clarity like it was yesterday. He clenched his fists.

Mackenzie, a 'friend' of the Leslies, had caught Ellis holding hands with a boy sometime during the last years of secondary school. Instead of confronting Ellis himself, he immediately went to Miss Leslie and told her of his findings.

Initially, that didn't seem like a problem - but she was deeply Catholic and intolerant of anything out of the ordinary. 

The moment he came home that day, he was berated with questions and lectures. Ellis didn't detail the things said that night and some part of Joe decided it was better off that way. He does know, however, that Ellis' teenage years were spent bouncing around homes of friends and living as a runaway.

_"She never even looked for me. I wasn' that hard ta' find, she jus' didn' care enough to look."_

Joe couldn't imagine that type of life. His mother had been understanding of both boys, even housing Ellis at one point through Joe explaining that an old school friend needed a place to stay. She happily obliged, going so far as treating Ellis as family.

His heart warmed at the memory. 

At 23:02, they were in bed. Ellis had been in and out of consciousness all day but he was lucid when Joe had squirmed into bed. The lamp was off and the only light was emitted from their alarm clocks. Joe lied on his side facing away from Ellis and while he wanted nothing more than to hold his lover, having two sick men would be far worse than one.

"I don't want to sleep, that's all I've done today." 

Joe wanted to groan. "Just sleep through the night, you'll feel better in the morning."

Ellis' voice was coated in congestion, "My head feels like shit. Someone must've taken a fuckin' hammer to my temple, swear to Christ." 

Joe rolled over, wrapping his arms around Ellis' lanky form. "Long ago in England, a wise and just king ruled the land-"

"Joseph Blake, don't you fuckin' dare-"

"His name was King Uther. The people lived well and King Uther chose Merlin the Magician for his court. Merlin knew the good days were coming to a close." He felt Ellis relax in his arms, "So Queen Guinevere and King Uther had a son. At the celebration of the baby's birth, Merlin pulled Uther aside and-" 

That was fast, Joe thought, holding Ellis' sleeping body in his arms. 

Joe was awoken a few hours later to a significant increase in temperature. Ellis' body was radiating more heat than before and God, that was fucking _terrifying._ He pressed his lips to Ellis' forehead and oh no, was he supposed to feel that warm? He patted his cheek just enough to wake him up- clearly annoyed to be disturbed. 

"Wha-?" Delirium seeped into his voice and Joe had never felt more worry for him. 

Medicine, he needed medicine. 

"I need to go to the shops. Your fever spiked and- I need to get reducers. Fifteen minutes tops." 

There was that concerning silence again, no remarks of _fuck off'_ s from Ellis. After a minute of silence, he gave a weak nod.

"Okay."

The way to the 24-hour pharmacy was filled with anxiety. He couldn't get his mind off of things that could happen while he was away like Ellis' fever getting _higher_ and getting permanent brain damage and oh God, it was scary. The process between leaving, fetching medicine, and coming home was a fear-ridden blur. 

He tossed his jacket on the floor and climbed back in bed with Ellis lied in the same position as he left him. That bad, then. 

"Joe?" He muttered, voice still filled with muck. 

"I'm here, I'm here." Joe tried mimicking the voice he used with Tom whenever he was sick and prayed it helped. 

He helped Ellis sit up to take a dose of liquid Calpol, knowing he preferred the taste of strawberry medicine over swallowing tablets. When they lied back down, Joe continued to hold him. 

Ellis buried his head into the crook of Joe's neck searching for some semblance of comfort- all of which Joe was more than willing to provide. 

From his spot came a muffled noise, "My body hurts."

Oh, what Joe wouldn't give to take some of that pain away. "I know, love."

"The meds aven't kicked in yet." 

"They won't for a while."

"Can you..."

There was another silence. 

"Can you keep tellin' me about- 'bout King Arthur?"

It was a newfound vulnerability- Joe smiled to himself.

"Merlin told Uther the danger his child was in. A darkness was bound to take over the land and Merlin tried to take the child far away to live. 'No way,' Uther said..."

The next time Ellis woke was in Joe's arms. His grip around him was grounding and with his headache cleared away, he thought about everything Joe had done for him that night. Part of him felt like a burden but another knew it was truly out of unconditional love. 

If only his mum could see how much he loved Joe, Ellis thought, maybe she would finally understand.

Ellis didn't care to clear his throat, his body boneless and relaxed.

"Thank you."

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so so much for readin!! love you <3  
> (come scream at me on tumblr : @svlad-gently)


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